Martin Short Emotionally Reflects on Losing Both Parents and Brother by Age 21 After Daughter's Tragic Suicide: 'Life Changed Completely’

Prior to his wife and daughter's untimely deaths, Martin Short lost his brother, mom and dad — all before the age of 21.

The actor, 76, reflected on experiencing so much loss at an early age during an appearance at the Netflix Is a Joke Presents: This Better Be Funny with David Letterman event in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 7.

Commenting on Short's upcoming Netflix documentary film, Marty, Life Is Short, Letterman said, "One thing that struck me was your childhood."

“You came from a funny Irish Catholic family and then suddenly your brother died in a car accident. And then your mother got cancer. And then your father died. That’s an incredible amount of loss very early,” he told Short.

“Yeah, I was around 20,” the comedian responded. “My older brother David died [in a car accident] first. He was the star of the family. Then my mother was diagnosed with cancer at his funeral [when Short was 12] and died three years later. My father died the year after that.”

“So there was definitely a period where life changed completely,” he added.

Short’s wife Nancy Dolman also passed away from ovarian cancer in August 2010. The pair married in 1980.

Opening up about Dolman's death in a 2024 interview, the Only Murders in the Building star described losing her as "absolutely horrible," but shared he has kept her spirit alive.

"I will tell you what I said to my kids at the time: 'I believe Mom has zoomed into our souls," the Saturday Night Live alum said at the time. "George Eliot said, 'Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.' We were together for 36 years. I didn’t want to forget Nancy."

The couple had shared three adopted children, sons Oliver, 40, and Henry, 36, and daughter Katherine, who died by suicide earlier this year.

Katherine, a social worker, tragically took her own life on February 23. She was just 42.

An insider told the Daily Mail that Short was "inconsolable" following her death.

"For someone who brings so much joy to so many, who is always trying to lift others up and make them laugh, this loss has completely shattered him," the source said.

"Bringing his children into his world through adoption with his wife, Nancy, who passed away, was the greatest thing he has ever done, and to lose Katherine is just as bad and sad as it was to lose Nancy," they explained. "It is just a terrible time for Martin right now, but that is to be expected."